Monday, November 14, 2016

I’m
so excited about my latest book purchase I just have to share it! I’ve just
acquired a copy of Cicely Hamilton’s autobiography, Life Errant (London: J M
Dent and Sons, 1935) – so the latest Spotlight On is about Cicely Hamilton.

Cicely
Hamilton (1872–1952) is one of my writing heroines. She was a suffrage
campaigner who joined the militant Women’s Social and Political Union founded
by Mrs Pankhurst, and wrote the words for the WSPU anthem, The March of the
Women, music by Ethel Smythe. Later critical of the dictatorial style of the
Pankhursts, she left the WSPU to join the Women’s Freedom League, and edited
their paper The Vote. In 1908 she founded the Women Writers’ Suffrage League
and the Actresses’ Franchise League.

Cicely Hamilton's autobiography, Life Errant

She achieved
success with her play Diana of Dobson’s in 1908, and went on to write a number of suffrage plays with her friend
Christopher St John (born Christabel Marshall, 1871–1960), including the
comedies How the Vote Was Won and The Pot and the Kettle. In 1910 she
wrote A Pageant of Great Women – I also own a copy of this rare text – which
featured fifty two great women including Joan of Arc, Jane Austen, Angelica
Kauffman, and Charlotte Corday. Cicely Hamilton herself played Christian Davies
(1667–1739), who enlisted in the army as Christopher Welsh. Davies’s disguise
was discovered by surgeons after she was wounded at the Battle of Ramillies.

The
Pageant was performed around the country, including Bristol’s Prince's Theatre
in 1910 and the Albert Hall, Swansea. Cicely Hamilton also wrote the book Marriage
as a Trade (1909) criticising women’s limited economic choices which forced
them into marriage for want of the skills or opportunity to do anything else.

During
the First World War, she worked for the Scottish Women’s Ambulance Unit, and
then joined a touring theatrical company entertaining the troops. Many of her
novels and plays deal with the issue of war and humanity’s capacity for
violence, which she attributed to what she called the herd instinct, the
“crowd-life” which overcame people’s “responsible individuality”. These
included the novels William: an Englishman (1919), which has been republished
by Persephone Books,
and Theodore Savage (1922). Her 1926 play The Old Adam (also known as The Human
Factor) explores the response of two warring nations when they acquire the
technology to disarm one another’s weapons. You might expect this to be a cause
for rejoicing, but Hamilton’s disillusionment takes the play in another
direction entirely. Unable to use machines, men arm themselves with knives and
clubs…

In
spire of her pessimism about the possibility of human progress, she continued
to campaign for women’s equality. She was an editor of The Englishwoman, and
worked on the feminist journal Time and Tide. She was active in the Six Point
group in the 1920s, campaigning for better child protection laws, legislation
to protect widows and their children, rights for unmarried mothers, equal guardianship
of children, equal pay for teachers, and equal opportunities and pay in the
civil service.

One
of the things Hamilton criticised the WSPU about was its obsession with dress
and appearance, “its insistence on the feminine note”. In a witty tangle of
gender identities, she once attended a fancy dress party dressed as George
Eliot (Marian Evans), with her friend Christopher St John dressed as George
Sand (Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin)
in male costume.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Today’s
guest was author Debbie Young. Debbie has written a number of author
guidebooks, including Sell Your Books (SilverWood Books) and Opening Up to
Indie Authors for the Alliance of Independent Authors (jointly with Dan Holloway).
She has also published two collections of essays, both inspired by life in the Cotswold
village of Hawkesbury Upton – All Part of the Charm: A Modern Memoir of Village
Life and Young By Name.

In addition Debbie has published a number of short story collections, including the Christmas
themed Stocking Fillers. She is now working on the first in a series of murder
mystery novels set in an English village not unlike Hawkesbury Upton – except,
of course, for the murders!

Debbie
has also written the book Coming to Terms With Type 1 Diabetes to raise funds and awareness
for the JDRF. JDRF is the largest charitable funder of research into a cure for
the disease, which affects both her husband and her daughter.

Amongst
her many activities, Debbie is the founder of the Hawkesbury Upton Literary Festival.
All events are free and it’s a wonderful chance to enjoy a day in the village
and listen to readings and talks. The next festival is on 22 April 2017. For
more details see the HULF website.

National Memory Day Writing Competition - Debbie’s
work is very much based in her local community, and it’s an excellent example
of the advice often given to writers to “write what you know”. So if you feel
inspired to have a go, or if you are already writing, you might be interested
in the National Memory Day writing competition. National Memory Day is an annual
celebration of poetry and creative writing for people affected by memory loss,
and the first National Memory Day is 18 May 2017. The competition is for poems
and short stories, and includes a Best Young Writer Award and Best Primary
Carer Voice Award. For details see the National Memory Day website.

Diabetes - If
you would like more information or advice about diabetes you might find the
following links useful:-

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About Me

I live in Bristol and I write historical fiction and non-fiction. In 2006 I completed an MA in English Literature with the Open University, specialising in eighteenth century literature.
My historical novels are set in the eighteenth century. To date they are: To The Fair Land (2012); and the Dan Foster Mystery Series comprising Bloodie Bones (2015), The Fatal Coin (2017) and The Butcher’s Block (2017). Bloodie Bones was a winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016 and a semi-finalist for the M M Bennetts Historical Fiction Award 2016.
The Bristol Suffragettes (non-fiction), a history of the suffragette campaign in Bristol and the south west which includes a fold-out map and walk, was published in 2013.